Stanje kruna bukovih stabala posle katastrofalnog ledoloma na Crnom vrhu

Abstract

The Level II Sample Plot where the research presented in the paper was conducted is located on Mt. Crni Vrh, in the Dubašnica management unit - compartment 11 - in the area managed by the Boljevac Forest Estate. Thirty marked beech trees (Fagus moesiaca (Domin, Mally) Czeczott.) had the defoliation assessed and the damage determined by class and agent in the growing period of a three-year-long research period. The investigations presented in this paper were performed following the catastrophic ice storm that devastated this area in the winter of 2014. The aim was to monitor the response of trees to a major natural disaster. The results showed that the investigated beech trees had been recovering relatively quickly although they had remained highly vulnerable to the attack of harmful pests and diseases, primarily to the extremely dangerous "beech bark disease", which occurred in the study stand two years after the damaging ice storm. Since beech is a very sensitive species, its condition after a major disaster needs to be monitored regularly at the affected localities in order to prepare and implement a program of adequate measures of protection and thus prevent the disease from growing to epiphytotic proportions or causing a chain of damaging events which could easily spread to the unaffected surrounding areas.